How can you position your brand for international expansion?

1 Define your brand purpose

Your brand purpose is the reason why your brand exists beyond making money. It is the positive impact you want to have on your customers, society, or the world. Your brand purpose should be clear, consistent, and authentic across all markets, as it is the foundation of your brand strategy. However, you also need to understand how your brand purpose resonates with different cultures and values, and how you can communicate it effectively. For example, if your brand purpose is to empower women, you might need to adjust your tone, imagery, and messaging depending on the social norms and expectations of each market.

2 Research your target markets

Before you enter a new market, you need to do thorough research on the potential customers, competitors, and cultural factors that affect your brand positioning. You need to identify the needs, preferences, and pain points of your target segments, and how they differ from your existing ones. You also need to analyze the competitive landscape, and how your brand can differentiate itself from other players. Moreover, you need to understand the cultural nuances, such as language, symbols, colors, values, and beliefs, that can influence how your brand is perceived and interpreted. For example, if your brand uses humor as a positioning tool, you might need to adapt it to the local sense of humor and avoid jokes that might be offensive or irrelevant.

4 Adapt your brand elements

Once you have chosen your positioning strategy, you need to adapt your brand elements, such as your name, logo, slogan, colors, fonts, images, and tone of voice, to match your strategy and your target markets. Your brand elements should be consistent with your brand purpose and identity, but also flexible enough to accommodate the cultural and linguistic differences of each market. For example, you might need to translate or modify your brand name or slogan to avoid confusion or negative connotations. You might also need to change your colors or fonts to suit the local aesthetics or preferences. You might also need to use different images or tone of voice to reflect the local context or expectations.

5 Test and measure your brand performance

After you have adapted your brand elements, you need to test and measure how your brand performs in each market. You need to collect and analyze feedback from your customers, partners, and stakeholders, and see how they respond to your brand positioning and communication. You also need to monitor and evaluate your brand awareness, recognition, recall, loyalty, and advocacy, and compare them with your objectives and benchmarks. You also need to track and measure your brand equity, which is the value that your brand adds to your product or service, and how it affects your sales and profitability. Based on your results, you might need to adjust or refine your brand positioning or elements to optimize your brand performance.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?